Jewish-Muslim Research Network Event Series

This winter semester, the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies is co-hosting a series of virtual events in partnership with the Jewish Muslim Research Network (JMRN), a forum to foster academic discussion and scholarship on Jewish-Muslim relations.

Founded in April 2019 by University of Michigan LSA Collegiate Fellow Adi Saleem Bharat and Katharine Halls of CUNY Graduate Center, JMRN is an interdisciplinary and international initiative that brings together academics whose research focuses on Jews, Muslims, and the relations and interactions between them. “The world we live in is fundamentally interdisciplinary,” said Bharat, whose own work focuses on Jewish-Muslim relations in contemporary France. “While interdisciplinarity is fraught with its own difficulties, well-designed interdisciplinary research, especially when collaborative, often broadens our horizons as researchers, while helping us develop creative approaches to challenging issues.”

The series will kick off on January 25 with a seminar featuring Professor Roey J. Gafter of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Professor Tommaso M. Milani of the University of Gothenburg. Gafter is a sociolinguist whose work focuses on the use of linguistic resources in the construction of ethnic identities. Milani is a critical discourse analyst who is interested in the ways in which power imbalances are produced, or reproduced, and contested through semiotic means. Gafter and Milani will illustrate and analyze the reactions of mainstream Israeli politicians to a celebrity marriage between Tzahi Halevi, a Jewish Israeli actor, and Lucy Aharish, a Palestinian Israeli TV personality.

On March 2, Flora Hastings, a Ph.D. student in the department of anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, will be in conversation with Professor Charles Hirschkind of the University of California, Berkeley on the topic of Hirschkind’s latest book, The Feeling of History: Islam, Romanticism, and Andalusia. The book examines the idea of Andalucismo—a modern tradition founded on the principle that contemporary Andalusia is connected in vitally
important ways with medieval Islamic Iberia.

Bharat emphasizes that the events are open to the public and all are welcome: “Attendees at past
events have been academics, activists, and members of the general public. In all cases, we hope that our diverse range of events stimulates audience members to think beyond disciplinary silos and against the grain of contemporary polemics around presumably ‘inherently’ tense Jewish-Muslim relations.”

Other events in April and May include a roundtable discussion on Jewish and Muslim decolonial thought, a seminar on the work of the Italian-Somalian writer Igiaba Scego, and a discussion on sectarianization in Southeast Asia.

Future events will be announced soon, details can be found at lsa.umich.edu/judaic/news-events/all-events.